Arizmendi Bakery’s Bread-Based, Worker-Owned Movement

If the United States decided its presidency based on a popular vote, Donald Trump wouldn’t be in the White House right now. It’s something that Sue Lopez, a worker-owner at Arizmendi Bakery, thinks about when talking about Arizmendi’s cooperative working business model.

“It’s kind of important to get back to the basics of when people’s voices count,” Lopez says.

Arizmendi Bakery has been in San Francisco since 2000, boasting two locations in the city — on 9th Avenue in the Inner Sunset and on Valencia Street in the Mission — and four more in the Bay Area. If you visit the bakery, you’ll find sourdough croissants, tea breads, and some of the best scones in city.

You’ll also find a unique business model that’s gaining popularity across the Bay Area and beyond: Worker-owned cooperatives, which came back into modern purview in the 1960s, are gaining traction for their anti-capitalist, compromise-heavy structures that promise equity for workers over big bosses. Organizations like Project Equity, which helps prevent baby boomer-owned businesses from closing following owners’ retirement by converting them into cooperatives, are leading the charge.

Arizmendi has an association of its own that’s been giving rise to more Bay Area cooperatives, including construction and landscape businesses. But it got its start from the Cheeseboard, a Berkeley-based cooperative that gave Arizmendi its first recipes, first bucket of starter dough, and thousands of dollars to initially fund the business. Since then, the bakery has flourished with its long history of worker equity and delicious baked goods.

The way the cooperative works can be deceptively simple: At its 9th Avenue location, its 21 worker-owners meet once a month to make decisions as a team. It’s one vote per person. Everyone has an equal say in the type of oven they might want to buy (gas or electric?), in the new products they’re rolling out for the holiday line (are the pie crusts flaky enough?), and in virtually any decision that will impact the future of the bakery.

“Everyone has a say in what goes on. There’s no seniority,” Lopez says. “It’s all equal pay at each bakery depending on the performance of each bakery.”

Even though the cooperative is based on equity in pay and in voice, it doesn’t mean that everyone will always agree. With no one to “pull rank,” conversations between 21 equal owners can take a while to resolve. Lopez says that they’ve been struggling with deciding on an oven for over a year.

But that’s part of the appeal of a cooperative. Long conversations can be grueling, but many times, they’re better than no conversation at all.

“There’s this capitalist streak of just one person. One person is running things. One person is the leader,” Lopez says. “We’re not socialized to compromise with each other.”

Moreover, the model has its creative perks. At another bakery, worker-owners might be subject to the whims of a manager’s vision. But in the eight years Edhi Rotandi has been working at Arizmendi, Rotandi has been able to pitch some of his own baking experiments as menu additions. A self-proclaimed “bread geek,” Rotandi brought his sourdough croissants to one of the board meetings in 2012. As with any new menu item, his croissants went through tasting and feedback.

“One of the earlier iterations of the croissants — one of my colleagues said it just tasted like a baguette with butter,” Rotandi recalls. “It was a little bit rough, but my technique at the time was less refined. But it was a good input. And I learned to work on it more, and it’s better.” Since then, his pet project has evolved into an Arizmendi favorite. You can order it plain, or with chocolate.

Before Arizmendi, Rotandi used to work as a baker for French pastry shops. And even before that, he was an electrical engineer. But Arizmendi’s unique business model was the right fit for him. New ideas are always encouraged at Arizmendi.

“We are independent,” Rotandi says. “We can do whatever we want.”

Now, Rotandi’s part of a quiet movement that’s bringing worker-based cooperatives to the table. With fresh breads and flaky pies, Arizmendi is leading in its own kind of revolution.

Grace Li covers arts and culture for SF Weekly. You can reach her at gli@sfweekly.com.

Upcoming Events

Friends of the Public Bank of the East Bay Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee WHEN: June 8, 2020 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm WHERE: ONLINE, VIA ‘ZOOM’ CONTACT: Email Event website MEETING We meet over Zoom. If you’d like to join us, and aren’t on our organizers’ list, drop us an email and we’ll send you an invitation. If you would like to join the meeting early and get an introduction to the concepts of public banking, or more locally to who we are and what we do, please email us and we’ll see you online at 5:30. WORKING GROUPS Some of our working groups meet… Continue reading →

Strike Debt Bay Area Book Group Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee WHEN: June 13, 2020 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm WHERE: ONLINE, VIA ‘ZOOM’ CONTACT: Email Event website EVENT ***>> EMAIL STRIKE.DEBT.BAY.AREA@GMAIL.COM FOR CONNECTION INFO. <<*** Strike Debt Bay Area proudly hosts a non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, and How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century. For our June meeting we will be reading the essay Coronavirus: scientific realities vs. economic fallacies by Georgi Marinov. An excerpt: Last month, the most egregious crime against the common citizen… Continue reading →

Sunflower Alliance Meeting Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee WHEN: June 14, 2020 @ 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm WHERE: ONLINE, VIA ‘ZOOM’ CONTACT: Event website MEETING We’re looking forward to getting together with you for a regular meeting. We’ll discuss the latest developments in our fight to keep new oil and gas wells out of eastern Contra Costa County! Plus we’ll catch up on other campaigns and check in with each other. We need your participation and your voice! Check here for connection info a few days before the meeting.

Online Study Group: What Will It Take to Save a World in Crisis? Reform vs. Revolution Import into your personal calendar Date Tuesday June 02 Time 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Event Type Class/Workshop Organizer/Author Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area Location Details Online (details in description) The global pandemic, impending economic collapse, and the survival of the earth itself at risk—with stakes this high, how do we focus our organizing? Can the course reversal we need be achieved through piecemeal reforms and voting in democratic socialists? Or will it take a complete transformation of the current capitalist system? In this remote access-study… Continue reading →

Online Study Group: What Will It Take to Save a World in Crisis? Reform vs. Revolution Import into your personal calendar Date Wednesday June 03 Time 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Event Type Class/Workshop Organizer/Author Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area Location Details Online (details in description) The global pandemic, impending economic collapse, and the survival of the earth itself at risk—with stakes this high, how do we focus our organizing? Can the course reversal we need be achieved through piecemeal reforms and voting in democratic socialists? Or will it take a complete transformation of the current capitalist system? In this remote… Continue reading →

Online Study Group: What Will It Take to Save a World in Crisis? Reform vs. Revolution Import into your personal calendar Date Tuesday June 02 Time 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Event Type Class/Workshop Organizer/Author Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area Location Details Online (details in description) The global pandemic, impending economic collapse, and the survival of the earth itself at risk—with stakes this high, how do we focus our organizing? Can the course reversal we need be achieved through piecemeal reforms and voting in democratic socialists? Or will it take a complete transformation of the current capitalist system? In this remote access-study… Continue reading →

Online Study Group: What Will It Take to Save a World in Crisis? Reform vs. Revolution Import into your personal calendar Date Wednesday June 03 Time 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Event Type Class/Workshop Organizer/Author Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area Location Details Online (details in description) The global pandemic, impending economic collapse, and the survival of the earth itself at risk—with stakes this high, how do we focus our organizing? Can the course reversal we need be achieved through piecemeal reforms and voting in democratic socialists? Or will it take a complete transformation of the current capitalist system? In this remote… Continue reading →

Online Study Group: What Will It Take to Save a World in Crisis? Reform vs. Revolution Import into your personal calendar Date Tuesday June 02 Time 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Event Type Class/Workshop Organizer/Author Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area Location Details Online (details in description) The global pandemic, impending economic collapse, and the survival of the earth itself at risk—with stakes this high, how do we focus our organizing? Can the course reversal we need be achieved through piecemeal reforms and voting in democratic socialists? Or will it take a complete transformation of the current capitalist system? In this remote access-study… Continue reading →

Online Study Group: What Will It Take to Save a World in Crisis? Reform vs. Revolution Import into your personal calendar Date Wednesday June 03 Time 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Event Type Class/Workshop Organizer/Author Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area Location Details Online (details in description) The global pandemic, impending economic collapse, and the survival of the earth itself at risk—with stakes this high, how do we focus our organizing? Can the course reversal we need be achieved through piecemeal reforms and voting in democratic socialists? Or will it take a complete transformation of the current capitalist system? In this remote… Continue reading →

Online Study Group: What Will It Take to Save a World in Crisis? Reform vs. Revolution Import into your personal calendar Date Tuesday June 02 Time 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Event Type Class/Workshop Organizer/Author Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area Location Details Online (details in description) The global pandemic, impending economic collapse, and the survival of the earth itself at risk—with stakes this high, how do we focus our organizing? Can the course reversal we need be achieved through piecemeal reforms and voting in democratic socialists? Or will it take a complete transformation of the current capitalist system? In this remote access-study… Continue reading →